Step 12 at the CPH12 v9 convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

Hi, everybody. My name is Palle. I'm an alcoholic. Okay. Okay.

We're getting ready for the last session. Run away with it. So what's, gonna happen now is that Chris and Doug, who had been entertaining us and enlightening us all weekend. Entertaining. I thought it was a Entertainment enlightenment.

Shops were like, the clowns from America. And, we're gonna do about an hour on on 12 and then go over to some q and a. So, so, we had a basket during the break over there. We got a couple of questions there. But, we also have the mic, so if you have any questions, just, don't worry.

You get your chance to ask the guys your question. Yeah. So, you get going. It's, you know, it's it's small enough. It's small enough to where, you you don't even need a mic.

Just I'm loud. He's louder than me. I can get loud. He can get loud. So, I I wanna show you 2 things.

We, we're now at step 12, and, Chris is absolutely phenomenal at at at this. He's gonna he's gonna show you how to start meetings, as he did me. I've opened up 3 meetings. I'm 2 for 3. 11, 1 did not make it.

It did not fail because things don't fail. Right? They just did not make it. People were not interested in the message that, that I was delivering, so that's fine. But the other 2 are just flourishing.

And and, I took this from, from Chris and, he did a he's got a he's got a meeting in New Jersey that you know, sometimes as a speaker, I think Chris may agree with me, I get kind of exhausted because people can only tap into my energy so much before I because I need I need to tap into energy too. Now, my energy is god but I also need I need human, I need human tapping if you will. Where I could tap into somebody's, somebody's energy. And and I think that's why I didn't make it through the airlines very well because you'd walk into this crew room, before your flight and you'd debrief your whole flight crew and it was just full of hate. Hate hate hate hate negative negative negative.

And I'd get on the airplane, I'd be like, you know, I'd pass out upfront by sleeping. I'd do the twitching and the drooling. And and so, flying asleep is not a good thing, but, hopefully, the co pilot was awake. I don't know. I was sleeping.

But, there's 2 there there's there's some things welcome, miss Canada. They're always late in Canada. They, there's there's, there's there's a few things that are in the big book that I would like to point out. I would like to point out the word permanent sobriety. Number 1, they talk about recovered in this book.

They never use the word except for one time in a third person, the word recovering. It was recovered. Now we talked about that. There's a difference between cured and recovered. Remember we talked about that those two things?

Cured meaning disease no longer exists nor the symptoms. Recovered means the disease does exist, the symptoms are gone. You want the disease to kick it up a notch, just add alcohol and drugs and you're off to the races. And And as we all know, it doesn't get better. It always gets worse.

Now, I haven't experienced that. So when I'm sponsoring guys that are chronic relapses, I feel like total losers and they feel like, I look at them straight in the eye. I said, you are gonna make a better sponsor than I will ever make. And I sit back and they look at me, they're like, well, how how am I gonna do that? I'm like, because I have never ex I can't sit here right now and say I know how you feel.

I have no idea on how you feel. I've I have no idea. I've never relapsed ever. I've come in here once and that was it. And they and they now, see, I take their thinking, it's all about the thinking, and I turn it and they're like, I see this hope.

And they're like, so I'm gonna be better than you? I said, absolutely. Because you could feel the pain that this person has. I have no idea the pain that you're going through. I had about 4 years sobriety and I was dying to feel out what that pain was.

And I actually I actually went to my sponsor. I said, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna relapse because I wanna check it out. And he looked at me, he goes, does that sound very smart to you? But I gotta feel this. I gotta feel, you know.

He says, but I'll tell you. It sucks. How about if we just leave it at that? So, in the book it talks about permanent sobriety. So if it does truly stay permanent sobriety, wouldn't you know what it is that's keeping everybody permanently sober?

I will tell you. It says here on chapter 7, working with others. This book is great. Right? Working with others, so it tells you how to work with others, I guess.

And then there's another chapter called how it works. You know? I talked to people in AA 5 years. How it works? I I don't know how it works.

There's a chapter called how it works. How do you miss it? They read it every time. Do you do you all read how it works in the meetings here before? I don't know how it works.

How about if we read the book? Okay. So the first time it says here, practical experience. Every time you see something in the big book, they're always gonna talk about experience. Their experience, which is great.

This this theorizing, you know, I'm a I I speak at universities, I speak to economic classes, I speak to business classes, And most of the teachers that ask me to speak at these universities are just geniuses, but they've never owned a company in their life, ever. They've never experienced owning a company. They never experienced putting a $1,000,000 on the line and just rolling the dice to see if it works. They've never experienced it, but, man, they can make an Excel spreadsheet and they can make a business plan and they're the best, but they've never had the practical experience. Now, on the other hand, I don't have the education as business.

I'm an aerospace engineer by education, but I have experience at the yin yang when it comes to business. Okay? So both of us together, it really works, but I work off of all practical experience. Okay? If it doesn't work for me, it ain't happening.

I'm not gonna do it. So everything that I've talked to you today is all experience. It has nothing to do with theory. It all has to do with experience. And this is my experience.

Practical experience shows that nothing the word nothing, I think, means nothing. That nothing will so much ensure immunity. Does everybody if you're immune to something does everybody understand what that means? English language. That means you can't get it.

You're immune to it. Nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. Intensive work. That means on Saturdays, when I'm totally exhausted and I just want some downtime, I know from 10 to 2 there's gonna be a drunk at my house, and I'm gonna bring him through the steps. And every Saturday, I say the same thing at 9 o'clock.

Oh, I would pay big money to be by my the door knocks. I'm like, come on in. Right? Because they know the the Doug Muir drunk form opens up at 10. Plus, I think they really like the cooking that my wife does at 12.

You know? Like, go over to Doug's house. If you have nothing to eat in your house, his wife will cook. Just pay attention for a couple hours, and he'll rant and rave about this big book stuff. So we get visitors at our house all the time, and I get calls in the middle of the night, and I get all that and all that great stuff.

Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. If you turn to page x v I I now, x v I I, it'll state this. It says, xvi, this seemed to prove first thing they did is they're talking about doctor Bob and Bill Mead. Bill, a doctor Bob, could not get sober. He was a great churchgoing man.

He knew so much about religion, but he could not get sober. He had all this guilt inside because he thinks he hosed all of Akron, Ohio, which is a very small town. And he had all this guilt, and he just he couldn't get sober. Really, our birthday, AA's birthday, should be Mother's Day, which I think is the 1st week of May. Yeah.

I think it's the 1st week of May because that's when they met. Well, actually, they met the day after Mother's Day because doctor Bob was underneath the table. He was drunk. And, Bill Wilson wanted to see him, so he couldn't see him then. And then the next day, he came, and that's when they met.

But what happened was on June 9th well, June 8th 9th, doctor Bob went to Atlantic City in New Jersey to a conference and got drunk. And they poured him on a train and sent him back to Akron, Ohio, and Bill Wilson was still in Akron, Ohio. They pulled him off the train. On June 10th is when doctor Bob went and did his operation. He had an operation he had to do, and, he didn't come home.

And everyone's like, here we go again. He's back out. But what happened was he went all around Akron, and he made amends. Made all of his amends. And that's why our date is June 10th, because he didn't drink after that, and I believe that.

I believe I I comes back to the amends, folks. Make everyone complete it, get it done, make it happen. Today's the day, now's the time. I mean, that is my famous saying. So let's just just get it over with.

Sometimes you just have to hold your breath and you're gonna have to go do it and just get it done. Alright? It states here then, it says, this seemed to prove when these 2 met and doctor Bob didn't drink again. This seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another as no non alcoholic could. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another, was vital to permanent recovery.

Was vital to permanent recovery. Permanent forever. That means getting on a plane in Florida, flying to Newark, getting on a plane from Newark, flying to Denmark, taking a nap, coming here, right, and having Pali get me up on stage for 14 and a half hours a day. Strenuous work, one alcoholic with another. K?

Doing Saturdays. It's all up has to do with helping others. So if you're not giving this away, if you're not sharing this with others, you are so missing the icing on the cake, as we call it. That is the icing on the cake. That is the joy of my life, to see a shaking man at my door in total despair, losing licenses around the United States, to be a unbelievable productive person.

I I see that time and time and time and time and time and time again. So if you are missing that because you're afraid you might hurt somebody, I'm here to tell you you are not that powerful. You cannot kill somebody by sponsoring them. Don't give them the verbal sponsorship. Give them this.

I mean, you could read, can't you? Give them this. Heck. I even put it in forms for you. Now you really can't kill them.

Just read. Okay? Get your own experience with these steps and share it with others. Does this make sense? 500 people are shaking their head.

So maybe saying yes. What's the word? So what I'd like to do is I'd like to, hand this over to Chris and and he's really, he is my definitely my my sponsor when it comes to, meetings and, organization and getting people together, in the masses. Certainly, it's, it's important to us if, if you're one of those real alcoholics out there. Certainly, it's important for you to to keep carrying the message.

Something just happened, like, in the last hour that, I'd like to share about because it's so it just there's things that happen in my life today, and I I I call them god shots. And what it is is I think that there they're things that are a little bit beyond coincidence that pop into my life every once in a while, and I believe it's god letting me know I'm I'm heading in the right direction. I mean, I think all of you have had those things. They're they're coincidences. Like, this wow.

I can't believe that that happened. Like, you you know, you're you're a 100 miles away from home and you're thinking about drinking, all of a sudden somebody from your AA group will pop up. I mean, things like that happen to us all the time. Well, a number of years back, I was sponsoring a lot of people, in Alcoholics Anonymous who, who were narcotics addicts. They were they also had alcohol problems, but they were mainly narcotics addicts.

And, what I believe in the 12 steps is step 1, you need to find your own truth. We talked about that, in step 1. Well, in step 12, I believe that you need to work with people that have the same problem that you have. Again, you know, I'm not, the AA police. I I really if you're if you're here, you know, I have zero problems with you being here.

I just ask that when it comes time to sponsor or or, guide someone through the process, please have the same problems that they have so that they can relate to you. It is one alcoholic working with another. That's one of the things that, makes Alcoholics Anonymous work. We can help when no one else can. Now if you're a narcotics addict and you're trying to sponsor an alcoholic, there's gonna be a disconnect.

What happened was, I was able to take some of these guys through the steps, but I told them that, your main problem is is narcotics. Your main problems are drugs. So I want you to work with other drug addicts. So they went they went to another fellowship, another major fellowship in our area, that doesn't, that didn't really allow the the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous to be used. It was against their primary purpose, and I'm not saying that that's that's a bad thing or a good thing.

But these individuals were very hungry to work with other people, and they found they kinda got, got short circuited there when, when they they tried to start some of these meetings, and and they were told that that, you know, they were they were not following traditions and they were not gonna be considered a a part of that fellowship anymore. So, the thought comes to a couple of us that we would start a different fellowship, a fellowship for narcotics addicts that could use the book Alcoholics Anonymous as a recovery tool. And, and the thought was that we would, we would use the name a and a. Well, these guys basically started, an a and a meeting. Alcoholics Narcotics Anonymous is what it was, known as.

And that was, all well you know, these meetings grew very quickly. We we found that there was a number of of, of drug addicts out there that were hungry for the message, of recovery from the big book, Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, again, we need to be very clear about what our problem is, but the step process has never been laid out better in any literature anywhere than in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. So, so they started a and a and a started to grow. I think it got up to about 10 meetings.

And, someone heard about it, over in Iceland, and I don't really remember how that was, but I got a chance to send some of my who've been instrumental in starting a and a over to Iceland, to carry the message. Now I I didn't hear much after that. That was several years ago now. But I'm I'm sitting in the back I'm standing in the back of the meeting, and I just mentioned a and a. And someone 4 feet away says, oh, yeah.

I'm going through the steps from a and a. I'm like, what? It was just an amazing coincidence. It's made it to Copenhagen. You know what I mean?

Through, via Iceland, obviously. But the way I kind of describe is you take a rock and you you throw it into a pond, and the ripples will move out like this. Well, when we help an alcoholic, or we help somebody else with an addictive illness, and we do it in a in a in a strong fundamental way, a way that really helps them achieve recovery, we don't know where those ripples are gonna go. We don't know how far or how many people are gonna be helped by that by that very simple message or or by that little amount of time that, that we spent. Now my own personal experience is when I when I got sober, I had a sponsor who was an oral tradition sponsor, and he really couldn't offer me the the recovery process out of the book Alcoholics Anonymous because he didn't know it.

He hadn't he hadn't experienced it himself. He certainly stayed sober and did lots and lots of service. And you know what? Intensive work with other alcoholics the best intensive work with other alcoholics is to take them through the steps, But there's other intensive work with alcoholics, and this guy just got involved in service and meetings, service and meetings, service and meetings. And he stayed sober for 10 years, that way.

And that's kind of the way he was trying to offer me sobriety. Service meetings, service meetings, service meetings. And I did that. I did that for, I don't know, about a year. But it wasn't it wasn't fulfilling, that inner need that I had, the the the god shaped hole that we're all born with.

I believe our alcoholism is our yearnings. We're not we're we always wanna fill ourselves with something from the outside to make us feel whole. We've gotta earn more money to feel whole. We've gotta have more sex to feel whole. We've gotta have this.

We've gotta do this. If I can only get that Mercedes, if I get that, you know, if I get if she if I could only start going out with her, if I if I could get rid of him. I mean, it's all of these things that we think we need to use. You know, food, we'll use food, we'll gamble. There's some there's some GA guys in here.

You know, if only I could hit the the trifecta. You know, I mean, we're we're going after these things outside ourselves to fill a a need inside of us that can only be filled by God. It's a God shaped hole. We try to fill it with all this other stuff, but it doesn't work. It doesn't fill that hole, and we remain empty.

It might make us feel okay for a while. Like, if we're if we're having sex while we're eating a steak, we may be okay for that 10 minutes. But, you know, after the steak's gone and you're done, you know, with the sex, you're you're back to you. Again, I'm back to me. And, and that's never good enough for us alcoholics or drug addicts.

We need to experience the oneness of God to be okay. And we'll try everything but that. Anything but that, we'll try it. And, there's a lot of unhappy people in the world, but the most unhappy, I believe, are the alcoholics who are really, really they they have this yearning that just can't be fulfilled, and they're trying to fulfill it. You know, here's the thing.

They call alcohol spirits. You go to the spirit shop, and, spirits is from the the Latin derivision or whatever is spiritus, which is like, the grace of God or something. Now this is what they call alcohol. They call alcohol, like like, it's short for the grace of God, spiritus. Now why now why would they be naming alcohol that?

It's because that's what we're looking for in the bottle. We're looking for a connection with God. We're looking for peace of mind. We're looking for, you know, you know, you're in into, like, the 3rd drink and you you go like, you remember that? You remember that, ah, and then it's a little bit after that.

But it's that, ah, that we're looking for. Now we need that. We're searching for that. And when we get sober, we don't have that. And we're going you know, we're we're really unhappy.

I mean, there's nobody more unhappy than the newcomer, you know, like like moping around, always complaining about everything, you know. You wouldn't believe my boss. You know? You go to you go to the meetings. You go to some of the closed minded discussion meetings in in in the New Jersey area where where anybody is allowed to share anything.

It's a, you know, it's a it's a it's a discussion meeting. And you can just and then, oh, I'm gonna leave a little drink drink my wife. It's my job. Oh, I'm like car. And and they're trying to share their way sober.

They're trying to share their way into some kind of spiritual condition. And you know what? They share their way right out the door around me. You know, if you continue to just wallow in the in the problem like like a pig in mud, you're you're just you're never gonna get anywhere. Now the best form of intensive work with other alcoholics is to carry the message carry the message that will lead the alcoholic to the fulfillment of that yearning, that yearning that we have to be whole with God and the universe and our fellow man.

Now, I never knew this. You don't understand what the steps are gonna do for you before you get involved in them. You know, you look at the steps on the wall when you work into your walk into your first meeting, you're like, kind of academic, kind of, you know, that looks like second grade spirituality to me. I've, you know, that's not gonna work for me. I mean, you just don't know.

And you don't know what kind of gifts are gonna come through working a program of recovery until you work them. I didn't know I had an unquenchable yearning. I just knew I was always uncomfortable. I was looking for something to make me comfortable. Well, that will make me comfortable.

I don't know, but I'm looking for it, you know. And I look for it in drugs and alcohol. I'd mix this drug with this alcohol to hopefully get the feeling that I had when I was 12 and I first got high. I mean, you know, I'm I'm looking for this relief from the bondage of me. And, you know, here I here I am, I'm working the steps.

I'm working the steps for a number of reasons, None of them the right reasons, but I don't think reasons matter when it comes to working the steps. I think I think motives are almost immaterial. As long as you do the work, you're gonna get the results. And if you're doing the steps just to be cool because it's now cool to do the steps, then do it for that. If you're doing it to because you can't seem to recover from alcoholism, do it for that reason.

Whatever reason you do it, get from one side of the steps to the other, however you can do that, because it will bring it will get you to peace of mind. Now in the chapter working with others, I highly recommend people using the chapter working with others as a tool to sponsor people. When I first came into AA, it was all about getting them to go to meetings. You gotta go to a lot of meetings. I'll pick you up at your house.

I'll do, you know, I'll do this. I'll do that. I was sharing on the 12 step at, at a convention in in New Jersey years ago, and they didn't know who they had mistakenly asked to share during this alcathon because it was, you know, it was people that weren't weren't really involved in the big book, and they didn't really wanna hear me much. But anyway, I I had 20 minutes to share on step 12, and then we turned it over to this, you know, raising of hands and discussion. I spent 10 minutes on going from step 1 to 11, and then I spent 10 minutes on, carrying the message of step 1 to 11 to an alcoholic, which is very appropriate.

It's it's it's what this book is asking us to do. And I shared this from my own experience. I I I wasn't I was as as the least obnoxious as I can be, And someone took exception to my newfangled way of working a program. It was this old guy and he had a bunch of his little sponsees that they were they you know, it was like a it was like a a big duck with the little ducks, you know, all those little little sponsees, like, around them. Like, can I get your coffee?

You know, let me hold your chair. And it was one of these deals, and he's like, and he sits down. And he listens to me. And and, a couple people share. One of them is my wife.

Well, thanks for sharing, Chris. I got a lot of blah blah blah. And then he raises his hand. Here's what he he says something like this. I don't know what the hell you were talking about up there.

You sounded like a counselor or something to me. I don't know about any stepdad or stuff like you. Who the hell you think you are talking about and stuff? What what we know is we get the drunk and we throw him in the car and we take him to a meeting. And we let them until they can love themselves.

I don't know about all these others and shit and stuff. You know what I'm saying? Now I took exception to that. He had also insulted my wife, while he was sharing. So I let him finish.

You know? And, and I said, his name was Stan or something. Stan, thank you very much for sharing. Interesting. You know, you you we were both talking about, working with other alcoholics and, you know, sponsorship and stuff like that.

It's kinda interesting that there's actually a chapter in the book Alcoholics Anonymous that speaks to that. It's called working with others. And, and it's it's interesting that nowhere in that chapter does it say throw them in a car or love them until they can love themselves. And he freaks out. He gets up.

He starts throwing chairs and kicking over tables. I mean, I have never seen this in my life, but the meeting stopped. The chairman goes, meeting's over. Meeting's over. People are head and blowing for the exits.

You know. It's this guy's freaking out. And I'm sitting there up at the table like you know? No. I'm not you know, I didn't I didn't mean to go after the I mean, well, actually, I didn't mean to go after the guy, but I feel very passionate about the carrying of this message.

The 12 step says, having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. It doesn't say having had a spiritual awakening from making a whole bunch of coffee and driving people to meetings. It says having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. So I don't believe you can have a spiritual awakening as a result of steps that you haven't taken. I just don't believe that that's possible.

Now a lot of us have spiritual experiences in AA. We've we get revelations and we, you know, we got we get these wows, you know, and stuff like that, and they're all good. But the spiritual awakening that they're talking about in the 12 steps comes as a result of doing the steps. And if you haven't done the steps, you haven't had the spiritual awakening. That's all there is to it.

If you haven't had the spiritual awakening, it's very difficult to carry the spiritual awakening to other people. Because it says, having had the spirit having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics. What message? Well, the message of I went through these steps and I had a spiritual awakening. That's the message we're supposed to carry.

Now there's 2 ways that you can help an alcoholic. You can carry them to the message, which is what a lot of 12 step work is. It's important work. I I I do not denigrate any type of 12 step work. There's literature committees, there's making coffee, there there's setup.

There's there's all kinds of stuff that's absolutely necessary for the carrying of the message. It makes the carrying of the message possible and it's important work. It's 12 step work, but it's important work. But the 12 step work that they talk about in the chapter working with others is carrying the message to the alcoholic. Not carrying the alcoholic to the message, carrying the message to the alcoholic.

Okay? So if you have had a spiritual awakening, it's incumbent upon you, you feel motivated to share this. It would be like discovering the cure for cancer and saying, wow, I got a cure for cancer. I'm gonna keep this to myself. You're just not gonna do that.

You've you've found the answer, not only to your alcoholism, but to that yearning that you've always had, that you've been, you know, eating and drinking and, you know, spending, trying to trying to be happy. You found how to be happy. You found how to have peace of mind. You now want to share it. You wanna share it from the rooftops.

I'll tell you with a lot of the people I take through these steps, there's an issue that happens right afterward. You know what that issue is? They go running into AA meetings telling everybody they've been doing it wrong all these years. I just found the message. All you people been lying to me all these years, you morons, and they cause a lot of trouble.

Why didn't you tell me I coulda died? You know, these I mean, they're this is how they go back into these meetings, and I counsel them to, you know, be cool about this stuff. I say things like, okay. You think nobody has been telling you the message. Do they read how it works in your meeting?

Yes. Yep. How much did you pay attention to that then? Well, la la. I go, leave these people alone.

Carry your carry the message of your experience, not don't go back and beat them up because they've been doing it wrong. Good god. Yeah. They've been doing it wrong, but you don't have to shame them. Why don't you go back why don't you go back and be be an be an example of a recovered alcoholic in your group?

Do what you're supposed to be doing. Grab some newcomers. Start taking them through the steps. Be an example in your group. This is what happened to me.

I got exposed to the steps in an area no one was working the steps. This is 1990, 91, and and, you know, the only thing you ever use your big foot big book for was for hiding money from an alcoholic because because you knew they'd never open it. It. That's the way that's the way it was in our area. Now, I go through the steps and, you know, my eyes are now opened.

And, all of a sudden, you know, all of a sudden I start sharing all this stuff. Now everyone liked me in AA up to this point, everyone, because I gave good share. You know what I mean? You know how to give good share? You give good share by saying things that are funny and interesting, but without anything that would ever offend anybody or or bother anybody.

You wanna make sure that the most amount of people in the room like you, and you give good share. And, you know, you have to be a little bit self humiliating, you know, and you gotta talk a little bit about how stupid you were this week. You You know, that'll make people like you more. And I and I had all this stuff, so I gave good share. So everyone liked me.

All of a sudden, I started talking about the experiences from the book Alcoholics Anonymous. You know what happened? What's with Chris? What's with What's going on with him? Did you hear him at the meeting the other day?

He was talking about actually making amends. Now I lost I lost a lot all these people came to our wedding, you you know what I mean? And and 1 by 1, we've we've pretty much lost all of them. I mean, we've gotten 10 times the amount of friends back in other areas with people that are in the the fellowship of the spirit. But at that period of time, you know, peep people people really backed away from us.

Now, I was bringing people over to my house to go through the book, like like, like Doug was doing. And, it started with the people who wanted me to sponsor. They'd say, hey, would you be my sponsor? And I'd say, sure. Come on over to my house, and we'll we'll start with the book.

And I would actually I'd take people through the book. And wherever it would say to do something, we would do it. And, you know, we they they come back with inventory the whole thing. Now they they started saying, listen, can I bring a friend of mine? I know you don't sponsor him, but he's interested in what we're doing here.

Bring him over. Well, it went from 1 or 2 people at my house to about 12 or 15. Now a lot of people are starting to go through the steps. And the amazing thing is is the people that went through the steps with me, all were all continued very, very strong in Alcoholics Anonymous. There were strong voices in AA.

They worked with other people. They stayed sober. Their lives got better. So they started to be heard in other meetings. Now, one of the guys that I took to this, I was they funneled the losers toward me.

You know? Listen, nobody is a loser in AA, but they they they the the people that they thought were losers, they funneled to me. The people that kept relapsing. Now what they what they misunderstood in these meetings is these people were more powerless than most of the people in the meetings. Yeah.

They were drinking. They were drinking because there was no answer in your group. You were sharing about what happened today. You were sharing about aunt Fannie and uncle Fudd and their visit over to your house. Oh, aunt Fannie and uncle Fudd came over.

Oh, they pushed all my buttons. Oh, you know, I had all my issues came up and I had to start using my boundaries. Yeah. They're drinking. They're supposed to be drinking if they're listening to crap like that.

So they started sending people to me. Now I started taking them through the step. Now this one guy this one guy was sponsoring somebody, and the guy kept drinking on him. So he said, you know, he said he heard that this guy Chris was getting some results. So he he shoves this guy my way.

He says, you mind, you know, you mind taking so and so through the steps? I'm not doing really much with him. So I took this guy through the steps. He he ended up having, like, 93 amends when we finally got to his amends, and he made 91 of his 93 amends, and he was a changed person. This this awakens your spirit when you go out and you set things right in the universe.

When you balance the scales of the universe, your your spirit is awakened. You know, so many people are in AA AA asleep dreaming they're awake. They're asleep dreaming they're awake. Well, you get through the steps and all of sudden your spirit is awake and then you go, oh my god. I was asleep.

Well, I've been trying to tell you that for 3 years. You know? But so all of a sudden, this guy, like, wakes up and he's a completely different person. And his sponsor comes to me and he goes, would you do with me whatever the hell you did with him? And I said, sure.

And I took this guy had, like, 14 years. But he had 14 years of never having a good job, never getting his license back for DWI, terrible relationships with women, you know, still touring with the dead, and and, you know, wondering why his life you know, terrible apartments. Just, you know, nothing is going on with with this guy. And, he goes to the steps with me, and within a year, he's got a good job, he's got his license back, he he got engaged and married, he bought a house, you know, you know, and his priest goes up and goes, what the hell happened to you? He goes, well, I went through the steps with this guy named Chris.

He goes, where can I find this guy? This is a priest. Well, he's speaking up in Netcong. Well, I I give a talk up in this town called Netcong and afterward, this priest comes up to me and he goes, I wanna introduce myself. You know, my name is father Fred, and I'm really interested in what you're doing.

I want you to do it at my church. I'll give you any room in my church any night of the week. You don't have to pay any money. I want whatever you're doing in your house, I want it to be part of the mission of my church. And I go, now by this time, I have an awakened spirit, so I know that when things like this are happening, it's it's a divine plan, and I best not interfere with it.

I best not stick my nose into it. So but there was an issue. Up until this time there were 3 types of meetings in New Jersey. There was step meetings, there was discussion meetings, and there were speaker meetings. There was no meetings called Chris teaching out of the big book.

There was no Chris teaching out of the big book meetings in New Jersey. So this is gonna be tough. So I open up this big book meeting in this guy's church, and mostly my sponsors came, but there was about 16 people there the 1st night. And I start I start teaching out of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous, telling you how you actually take these steps and encouraging you to take these steps by talking from my own experience. Now the meeting had its ups and downs for the 1st couple of years.

All of a sudden, a young people's group discovers it. This young people's group discovers it. This young people's group with about 20 or 30 people discover it and they start coming there. All of a sudden, the meeting goes from about 20 people to about 50 and we've gotta move up stairs. Now, you know, now it's getting really big and people are coming from all over.

People are come people are driving a 100 miles to actually hear the message, you know, and they're coming to Bernersville. And nobody from Bernersville is going to this meeting because you gotta remember, I'm like I'm like, you know, I was I was I was like, Tomane Charlie or something. You know? Stay away from him. It might be catching.

But people who were hungry for the message, who were hungry, they had that spiritual that spiritual crying out for fulfillment because, you know, they know that there's more to AA than just staying sober. There's more in AA. There's gotta be more in AA. Started looking around and they started heading for Bernersville. Now over the we're celebrating our 10th anniversary, December 1st, for the Bernersville Home Group.

This group has influenced a lot of groups in the area. Not only in the area, but there's meetings that have that have followed, what we do that have based on what we do, that they've started to do that in other states. And and, you know, there's probably 20 or 30 meetings that use our format and and actually teach out of the book. Now in the, there's a pamphlet, called more about alcoholism. In that pamphlet, it says the the the, sole purpose of an AA group is the teaching and practice of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

That's what it says in this pamphlet. Bill Wilson wrote the pamphlet. So we take that seriously in our group. The sole purpose of an AA group is the teaching and practice of the steps. That's what we do in Burnsville, and people think that we've got this newfangled cult type of AA.

It's not. It's going back to it's going back to the basics. It's going back to the 1st decade AA. If you wanna learn something about Christianity, go back and study 1st decade Christianity, 1st century Christianity. If you wanna learn something about Buddhism, go back to the earliest texts available of, on Buddhism.

If you if you wanna if you wanna learn learn anything, go back to the origins of that movement and study what they were doing. Study what worked. Study why it became a big movement. Why did Alcoholics Anonymous go from 2 people to 2,000,000? There's gotta be a reason.

There's gotta be a success story in there somewhere. Find out what it is. The success story happened up until about 1950, 55. Was this really the success story of Alcoholics Anonymous? We've we've grown since then almost by mistake, because there's so there's the it's the message has become watered down so much.

But the real the real, the real amazing part of Alcoholics Anonymous happens happened in the 1st couple of decades when they really had it right. They really had the spiritual process right, and we've really tried to get, we've really tried to get back to those basics. Now in this book, it talks about approaching the alcoholic. And it basically says in here that your your prospect, that's somebody you haven't landed yet to go through the steps. Your protege, that's somebody who's gone through the steps with you.

It says when you've found a prospect for Alcoholics Anonymous, find out as much as you can about them. This is gonna be a sales job. It's funny. You're gonna sell someone on the idea of Alcoholics Anonymous, and then you're gonna back away because now it's a take it or leave it. You've got the information now, now that I've sold you on the ideas of Alcoholics Anonymous.